


than the deepest sea

by Red



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Disabled Character, Growing Old Together, M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles took control of Erik one day. Ages later, he'll realize how difficult it is, letting go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	than the deepest sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kernezelda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kernezelda/gifts).



> For the prompt: "Charles doesn't let Erik go after using Erik's power to free himself. He's in pain, weary, desperate to keep the attack from becoming a mutant-hunt ignition point. It takes nearly all he has to manipulate the memories and minds of the President and his men, but afterward, he has Erik simply slip from mind and forces him to return to the mansion with Charles and Hank. Charles doesn't know what he's going to do with Magneto, but he can't be allowed to cause any more incidents. And if that means Charles has to confine him on the grounds (and torment himself with Erik's presence), then so be it. He loves Erik, but Magneto is too dangerous to let free."

When first he did it, Charles didn’t think it would last more than week. 

Pinned on the grass, blood in his eyes, he hadn’t been thinking at all. Erik was at once a threat and threatened himself, and Charles was exhausted. He took control of Erik, used his powers, and when done he simply--forgot to give him back.

A simple enough mistake, after taxing his powers so much. Doubly so, after Erik had nearly concussed him with a stadium. And, truth be told, it was a handy mistake at the time. Hank didn’t even comment on it. Erik followed meekly alongside them to the mansion, and Charles thought at the time he’d give it a night. Make Erik sleep before he slinks off to whatever hole in the woods he’d wind up in, this time. Then, the next morning, he thought it might be prudent to keep Erik hidden the rest of the day. It’d be smarter for Erik to make his escape at nightfall. 

Then it was a week. Hank commented _then_ , but Charles paid him little mind. It was safer this way--the media circus still in full swing--and Charles had started to realize, by then, there were other benefits to having Erik in hand. 

Really, Hank ought to be thankful. So long on the serum, Charles had to learn the practicalities of living in his body again, and weaning down his drink didn’t make matters easier. There was much at which Hank excelled--loyalty, intelligence, friendship--but caretaking was not exactly the top of the list. Charles had loathed having his friends play nursemaid the first time around. Erik was a rather elegant solution to the problem. Under telepathic control, he was practically an extension of Charles himself--a tool, almost. Using Erik was no more humiliating than using his chair. It’d just be for the short while, just until Charles had his strength back, and anyway it wasn’t as if Erik didn’t owe him. 

One week merges so swiftly into another. The authorities kept stepping up their search for the elusive Magneto, the papers are still plastered with Erik’s mugshot. Charles remembered enough from his former days in physical therapy to teach Erik how to work out the strains in his shoulders, how to help with his exercises. He was helping Erik. He was saving resources for the school, not hiring outside help. 

A month, a season, a year. 

Erik would only get himself killed, elsewhere. Charles had seen the future, he knew what could still become of them all, one day. 

A year, a decade...

Where else would Erik go? Wasn’t this better, keeping him close? Wouldn’t he prefer this anyway, spending his years by Charles’s side? Warm and comfortable, protecting a school of their kind?

***

There are nights he’ll leave Erik’s mind untethered.

They're old men, now, in a world so changed; so different, also, than the world he saw once through his other self.

It will be peaceful and quiet, this wing of the mansion removed from the student dorms. The light will be streaming from under the bathroom door as Erik showers, as Charles waits for him in bed. As Charles, carefully, doesn’t touch his mind. 

He’ll stare absently at a book or his tablet, trying to ignore the sound of the water shutting off, the peripheral awareness of Erik readying for bed, the ghost-like sense of Erik’s consciousness. For decades, he held this man captive. An impression of Erik will be always be there, indelible in Charles’s mind, even if he should leave forever. 

The door will open, and he won’t look up. He’ll wait, each time more certain than the last that this will be the end of it. That Erik will shout out his entirely justified rage, the bitterness he’ll surely feel at the sudden realization of a whole life wasted, of his causes forgotten, of years upon years of being controlled and used as little more than a personal servant. Charles will wait, every time knowing that at the least, Erik will soon get dressed and leave this room for the last time. 

Sometimes, Erik will pause in the midst of the room. Charles will wonder what his thoughts are, for once unable to know them; he’ll wonder what it is Erik is seeing-- 

(Only once did he glance up, to see Erik watching the snow fall outside. Erik was gruff and irritated, then, but seemingly only as Charles had caught him in a moment of idle distraction.) 

\--Yet every time, it ends the same. Erik will continue the debate they’d had over dinner, or he’ll comment on some small chore he has to suffer in the morning, or he’ll ask Charles if he remembered to take his pills. He’ll pull back the blankets and curl up next to Charles, content even in the absence of Charles’s control to be here. 

Every night, Erik will come to him. And every night, Charles will wish he could know why. 

He’ll keep his powers to himself. Erik will grumble about how distant he's acting, will accuse him of being too sensitive or of coming down with something. Charles will wait, and wait, and his chest will ache for knowing that this isn’t real. After so long being buried, how can Erik’s will be anything other than dead? 

Just a little longer, he’ll tell himself. A few more hours, and that strong will shall surely return. A night, a day, a week, and Erik is going to be his old self again. He’ll be the Erik he met, the one that cared only for reckless, stupid plans. That would never submit to a life of quiet domesticity, the placid companion of an aging professor.

Charles will watch over Erik as he sleeps. He’ll memorize every line in that familiar face, every silver hair. 

He’ll know, sure as anything, that when he wakes Erik will be gone.

(And if he wakes, instead, to find his powers have again snared Erik’s control, to find Erik’s dreams overpowered and smoothed-down like a rock beneath water… Well, how poorly they would sleep, otherwise. Perhaps it is, and always has been, for the best.)


End file.
